


growing so cold

by rayfelle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, wintertime angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 05:19:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6316195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rayfelle/pseuds/rayfelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lovers, they once were. Bathed in love and adoration; decorated with soft touches, quiet confessions of something eternal and never ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	growing so cold

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday, Edīt! <33

Air cold and wind freezing. Their feet buried under layers of snow and ice, skin red from the weather. Polished until the pain shot through their bodies with small shivers, needle pricks of feeling. Remus’ golden had turned icy blue as the night set in.

It had been years since the days spent in welcoming school halls.

“So you’re leaving?” Sirius’ voice was swallowed up by the quiet buzz of the people behind them, away in their own world. Where the Christmas lights were bright and happy, where the fate seemed kinder. “Just like that? As if nothing happened?”

Remus’ body shuddered with something closed-off and denied. A kind of old wound that never healed and got torn open over and over again. “What else am I supposed to do, Sirius? Stay here and listen about how I am such a danger to… to _everyone_? That I am the bloody spy? Even my patience thins at some point.”

The whispers behind his back had been judging. Cruel, almost, once the truth about his condition was revealed to those allied to the Order. Warriors of light, as if. Those like he were judged by both sides, shunned by both dark and light. Nowhere to turn and nowhere to run. A monster stayed a monster no matter what the setting and the clothes it wore.

“How about, _I don’t know_ , prove them wrong? I never knew you were such a fucking coward.” Venom dripped from Sirius’ words. A personal offence, seemingly. The man could still feel the body heat shared between them, so many days ago. Even if that was now infected with doubt and suspicion.

Like cancer it had spread between their ranks. From one mouth to another, no one knew where it had started first. Once sworn bothers now kept daggers in their hands, wary of each other and counting minutes, seconds until they could leave. A guessing game of who was the killer, who was the one who would, in the end, sell them all out to the Dark Lord.

“I am not as _strong as you are_ , Sirius! I cannot just not give a bloody fuck about everyone around me.” Remus snarled and a part of his wolf rose from deep within, cruel and true in the face of rejection and hatred. Enough with the ‘be more like me’ and ‘just pretend you are something else’  mantras they had fed him. Enough with everything.

“But, of course, it’s so easy for you, isn’t it? Black Lord, no one cares what you were because you’re just a wizard. A normal _human being_. Not some… some half-breed _freak_ like that poor beggar Lupin. Don’t you think I don’t know what you people are talking about behind closed doors? _Wolf hearing_.” And gone was the man, the one that was calm and collected despite the dark secrets. Out had come to play the one tamed by the moon. The one they all feared.

Sirius stepped back, eyes wide and breath catching in his throat. Nothing could be said now, not when it all seemed so meaningless in the face of the wildfire that was Remus.

Lovers, they once were. Bathed in love and adoration; decorated with soft touches, quiet confessions of something eternal and never ending. A dream that they thought would last forever, a fantasy of happy endings and autumn evenings spent curled up under blankets – everything burned like hot coals under the strain of war.

Nothing ever lasted forever. And they were just another casualty of war.

“Well, you did _nothing_ to make it better! You just stood there and took it, like some fucking martyr. You have _no_ place to lecture me. I have gone through enough shit in my short, fucked-up life, I don’t need this crap from you as well!” The Lord in name alone hissed through clenched teeth. With hands balled up in white-grip fists the man was ready to shatter everything left untouched between them both.

Remus scoffed so quietly, unlike the beast that he had been before. “ _Typical_.” Nothing else could be done here. He had no strength left to wear stiff masks of false acceptance and old love. Everything went up in flames, forgotten and unneeded. “What else did I even expect.”

Snow crunched under his shoes. The wind continued to howl about lost centuries, lost lives in the cold of war. No going back, no forgiveness. What has been lost can never be returned - not when the scratches were still bleeding and sour. Not so soon before the end of everything (but they knew nothing about this yet). Better to walk away and never turn back.

Lost love.

Painful love.

Only cold snow was left behind.


End file.
